Saturday, 23 May 2015

I left at 6 a.m.

I left at 6 a.m., the low sun glinting off silver seams of slug trail.

At the junction where the double yellow lines divert around the big sycamore, Jackson Pollock bird shit covered the road and part of the abandoned pushchair.

A funfair has set up in the park, behind the row of massive green Dolly Mixture holly bushes. I walked past behind two other men in high-vis vests:

“Do you know that guy up Deighton with one arm?”

“Stumpy?”

“Aye, that’s him, Stumpy…”

In town, I passed a noisy lock-in at the bar under the railway arches: “Setting the new standard of late night drinking culture…”

Later, I drove out to the country, where nightclub moguls build the most ostentatious houses as high up the panoramic ridge as possible. They compete for the stripiest lawns, the most absurd double/triple life-size buddhas, the most bloated shiny black 4x4’s, the most unorthodox use of decorative gravels and spars etc.

Mr Briggs pulled up in an old Toyota Yaris:

“I’ve just taxed this, £60. Just insured it, £250.”

That's all. Then he went.

In the village, this year's flying ant sex orgy was underway and the builders were listening to 80s heavy metal on a paint-spattered radio.

Back in town, a man with a chin-strap beard popped up from behind the fence of residential care home:

“Hello, mate. Do you know me?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, this is a residential home and I’m Wayne. I’m a bit autistic; I’m always thinking people are going to knife me. That’s no way to carry on, is it?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say so I said, “You should be all right at the moment, there’s nobody around” and I set off walking again.